Hi, just a quick note to let you know that the R4 Revolution team is organizing a simple homebrew contest on their site, to elect the top 10 homebrews of all time:
http://www.r4revolutionds.co.uk/top-10-r4-ds-homebrew-get-voting/
You just need to post your top 3 homebrews, and of course if you like my Marble & Warcraft: Tower Defense games don’t hesitate to support me by voting for them 😉
As promised, here is the full source code of the last working version of the game & map editor. Note that didn’t cleaned it up and it’s provided ‘as-is’. The source of the game need DevkitPro r21 and the latest PALib community version to be compiled. The source of the editor need Visual Studio C# 2005 to be compiled (the sources for this one are very messy).
All source code is licensed under a slightly modified Zlib license, included with the sources.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it in time. I’m leaving next week, and won’t have any more time to work on it. Since it will be quite a long time now before I’ll be able to develop this hombrew, I’m unsure about the fact that I may finish it someday.
In a few days, the full source code of the last version will be released. I’ll also try to put out a fixed release with works with M3/G6 real, since I know a way to bypass the problem with those cards.
Now a little explanation on this sad ending: in the end, I nearly got the 200$ needed, but way too late… But that not the only problem I had. Even when I didn’t had the donations for, I ordered a 2nd flashcard because I know it take some time to receive it from those online sellers. Unfortunately, there was stock problems (even though it was said to be available..) and I received it only last week. And without the microsd card I bought with 😦 When I saw it would take some time to gather all the money, I decided to follow the advices in some comments and went out to check for used DS. I spent a full afternoon asking in all used stuff shops I could find, none had a DS (some had PSP, but no DS..). Even with those failures, I decided to go on and start programming, but after having added all the gfx needed for the lobby, I realized the memory used by those would cause problems in-game, since it’s *really* tight in memory. To make it work, I had to recode all a major part of the gfx in GIF format (easy), but also rewrite the whole way gfx are managed in the menu and in-game (not enough time for..). And on top of that, the USB key where the lobby gfx paint shop pro files were died, and I don’t know why :s Still I started thinking about the multiplay comm protocol and came with lots of ideas, with some I think doable in the short time I had. But the memory problem was still here, all needed some amount of free memory, which wasn’t available. And rewriting the whole game engine obviously wasn’t an option. Still, I came up with more ideas (simplying though the multiplay modes and working) which can work within the free memory range I had, but I didn’t had enough time to make it. Exams, homework and my big school project which I was late on had reason of my remaining free time 😦
I really would like to give many thanks to all donators and everyone who supported this project since its creation, without you I don’t think I could had pushed this homebrew so far.
I feel really bad to not being able to catch up to everyone’s hope concerning multiplay, and to tell the truth, this was my main goal since the creation of this game. I’m really disappointed to end this project without it… Though, since the source will be made public soon (be warned though, it was my first DS game experience, and the code is not really clean), maybe someone will continue working on it.
Thanks again for your support, I had a great fun making this game.
Thanks to some testing runned by Michoko, the source of the problems causing WTD not working with M3/G6 Real have been identified.
In fact, it is caused as I thought by the DLDI driver of those cards: they use quite some shared RAM, which is also used as working RAM by the arm7 binary. And as the arm7 core I use contains lots of things (Wifi lib + my new sound lib, supporting MP3), it’s also very tight in free RAM.
Then, the extra RAM used here by the DLDI driver of those cards cause the arm7 to crash, as there’s no more room for my audio lib to init… I may do something about it, but that will take some time (which I obviously don’t have :/)
In the meantime, you can blame the makers of those cards for using such non-standard way of allocating RAM space for their DLDI driver (they should have use the heap in main RAM like other manufacturers, not put it in the shared work RAM)…
Finally, here is the promised new version: Download
Changelog:
– PAFS version is gone, now only the fat/DLDI version is available
+ you can now use the arrow keys to select maps in the menu
+ added 5 automatic levels of difficulty for each map: it affects the life of the monsters, and the final score
+ options are now saved within the rom (require DLDI driver with write support)
+ in-game menu added
+ added possibility to restart the map in-game
+ added quicksave & exit in-game option so you can save your current game and finish it later (require DLDI driver with write support)
+ high-scores are now saved (require DLDI driver with write support)
+ high-scores can be viewed on the map selection screen (press L or R to switch minimap/high-scores)
+ small speedups here and there
+ added some new maps
+ new game icon
= fixed some bugs
= fixed Long Walk TD skeleton’s round
Thanks to all donators!
Short version: I need 200$ to buy a 2nd DS + flashcart to add multiplay : 
Long story:
I’ve said earlier that I would make a point on this, here it is. As you may have noticed, still no multiplayer in this release… Why?
I planned to add it during my year abroad in Montreal, but infortunately the friend who was planning to come with me (and with his DS) could not come… So with only 1 DS on my hand, adding multiplayer is impossible.
But there’s another problem now. In 2 months, I’ll be back in France and as I’ll have school finished, I’ll start working. I also plan to take a flat with my girlfriend. This means obviously, no more free time for homebrew development…
The good part is that I still have 2 months to implement multiplayer !! But I need a second DS to be able to do it… That’s where I need you. I need 200$ to buy a second DS + flashcart. That means, if 100 people each donate 2$, I can add multiplayer to WTD…
So it’s up to you now! I’ll do my best to add multiplay for a final version of my homebrew, but I need your support… Keep it mind that the faster I can bought the 2nd DS, the best chances are that multiplay will be up with plenty of options!
Here’s the donation link: Donate !
I’ll make a point regulary on how much money has been donated so far. Thanks for your support!
Warcraft : Tower Defense 